The Warriors were founded by wealthy young adventurer Dwayne Taylor, who devoted his life to fighting crime after the murder of his parents. Mentored by his legal guardians-retired mercenary Andrew Chord and enigmatic housekeeper Tai. Dwayne fought crime as Night Thrasher, forging a vigilante partnership with the superhuman brother-and-sister duo Midnight's Fire and Silhouette, and romancing the latter; however, their alliance ended badly when Silhouette was shot by a gangster. Blaming Thrasher for the tragedy, Fire disappeared with his fallen sister, swearing vengeance.

Despite this setback, Chord encouraged Dwayne to continue his work, and to keep seeking allies in his war on crime. Inspired by and envious of the family dynamic of the Fantastic Four, Dwayne decided to form his own super-hero quartet: he restored Richard Rider's lost super-powers (casually risking Rider's life in the process), persuading veteran adventurer Rider to join him as Nova; he recruited eager young telekinetic hero Vance Astrovik, then known as Marvel Boy; and he pressured reluctant heroine Firestar into joining the group after uncovering her secret identity. No sooner had the four met than they found themselves in battle with the alien menace Terrax, whom they defeated with the aid of Namorita and the clownish kinetic-energy-charged Speedball. The six heroes decided to remain together as a team, dubbed the "New Warriors" by Speedball using a television reporter's description of them. The new group, based in Dwayne's Ambrose Building penthouse, was funded by the Taylor Foundation, a conglomerate of financial institutions established by Dwayne's late father and overseen by Chord and Tai, who also acted as Warriors support staff.

After aiding Thor against the Juggernaut, the Warriors crushed an A.I.M.-equipped street gang run by the embittered Midnight's Fire, who was disowned by his sister Silhouette. By this time, the superhuman genetic research firm Genetech had hired the Mad Thinker to investigate the Warriors, gathering information on the team's powers; however, the Thinker seemed to take a fond personal interest in them. He concealed the details of their personal lives from Genetech and tried to offer the young heroes guidance over the course of several encounters. Meanwhile, Genetech used the Thinker's data to create their own team of super-youths, Psionex: Asylum, Coronary, Impulse, Mathemanic and Pretty Persuasions. This unstable new team would encounter the Warriors repeatedly as both enemies and allies. Similarly, Genetech itself would either cause or help defuse a variety of exotic threats over the years, often working with the Warriors.

The Warriors eventually discovered that the Taylor Foundation was corrupt, that Chord had murdered Dwayne's parents, and that Tai was an evil sorceress bent on world domination, a member of the ancient Dragon's Breadth cult whose hidden temple in Kampuchea housed a mystical energy nexus known as the Well of All Things. Decades ago, a unit of American soldiers-including Chord-had made a pact with Tai through which they would marry the cult's selectively-bred daughters and produce offspring fated to control the Well's power, all in accordance with a prophecy that said a merging of East and West was required to access the power; in fact, Tai planned to sacrifice the children to the Well to gain its power.

All of the soldiers participated in the pact except for Daryl Taylor (who refused since he was already married), each of them returning home to start families with their new brides. Tai's daughter Miyami married Chord and bore him twins; but to save the children from Tai, she faked her own death and that of the twins, whom she gave up before she went into hiding. To replace these children in the pact, Tai mystically forced Chord to kill his friends, the Taylors, and take custody of their boy, Dwayne. When the truth about Tai finally came out, Tai found and killed Miyami and learned that the lost twins were Silhouette and Midnight's Fire. Most of the children of the pact formed the Folding Circle, who hoped to claim the Well's power for themselves. Unwilling to risk the Circle usurping the Well's power, Tai had long since decided to make the Circle her lieutenants and sacrifice an alternate group of super-youths to the Well-this was why she and her pawn Chord had encouraged the formation of the New Warriors. Tai's elaborate plot ended in a three-way battle at the temple between the Warriors, the Circle and Tai, whom Night Thrasher killed to save the Warriors.

By this time, Vance had been jailed for accidentally killing his abusive father. Avengers trainee Rage, fired for helping the Warriors steal an Avengers Quinjet to reach Tai's temple, filled Vance's slot in the team. The group also found new allies in veteran super hero Spider-Man; college students Mickey Musashi, and the hapless Mike Jeffries, who took turns wearing a suit of jet-powered armor as the novice adventurer Turbo; the flying mercenary Cardinal; the mercenary Sprocket (Cardinal's ex-lover), hired as the team's pilot; the cartoonish Slapstick; the street vigilantes Cloak & Dagger; and obnoxiously brainy teenager Carlton Lafroyge, who provided research and tech support as Hindsight Lad (later simply Hindsight). Namorita took over team leadership from an often-absent Night Thrasher, but after the Poison Memories street gang stole the Warriors' personal information from Namorita and attacked the team's families, a guilt-stricken Namorita left the team only to rejoin shortly thereafter as the mutated Kymaera. Meanwhile, released from jail early for good behavior, Vance rejoined the Warriors in a new guise as Justice.

When Nova's old foe Sphinx scattered the Warriors across the timestream, Hindsight Lad teamed with Dwayne's estranged half-brother Bandit to form a new roster alongside Dagger, Darkhawk, Alex Power, and Turbo (Mickey Musashi). These alternate Warriors managed to rescue their time-lost comrades, and the combined Warriors forces defeated the Sphinx, who merged with his female counterpart and found enlightenment after the Warriors helped him see the folly of his villainy. Silhouette broke up with Dwayne and left the team alongside her new lover Bandit, but the remaining new recruits all stayed on as Warriors reservists, and all but Dagger and Darkhawk would soon upgrade to fully active status.

When Namorita was enslaved by the Undertow paramilitary group during one of Dwayne's frequent absences, the team expelled Night Thrasher, who left alongside Rage; for a time, the two acted as mentors to Psionex. Justice took over as Warriors leader, and the group was joined by the Scarlet Spider (secretly Spider-Man clone Ben Reilly), the hyper-adaptive Helix, and the time-manipulating Timeslip, who helped rescue Speedball from the kinetic energy dimension where he had been trapped while an alternate-future Speedball impersonated him for months. After liberating Namorita from Undertow, Night Thrasher and Rage rejoined the Warriors in time to help destroy the would-be world-killer Volx, alien queen of the Dire Wraiths, who had slain backup Turbo (Mike Jeffries).

The group began to drift apart as its members focused on individual pursuits. The increasingly part-time team fought foes such as Effex, the Elements of Doom, and A.I.M. alongside allies such as the young Kree super-mutant Ultra Girl, the Thunderbolts, and the Avengers (who recruited Firestar and Justice), until Night Thrasher moved to Seattle on a personal mission and formally disbanded the Warriors. Unwilling to give up on the team, Speedball reorganized the group alongside Nova, Namorita, Turbo and new recruits Aegis and Bolt, funded by Namorita's cousin Namor. When an ongoing conflict with arms dealer Joe Silvermane led to the destruction of the "Crash Pad", Turbo's new boyfriend Dalton Beck helped the team set up shop in a city firehouse; however, Beck was soon exposed as Silvermane's super-agent Firestrike, though a repentant Dalton helped cripple Silvermane's operation before entering the witness protection program. Despite the return of Night Thrasher, the group has since lapsed into a semi-active state again. Turbo is determined to retire from heroics, Bolt apparently died, and only a few Warriors such as Night Thrasher, Nova, Speedball and Namorita were frequent participants in the group. But the team stood ready for action when needed, whether against minor threats like the super-delinquent Southpaw or major menaces like the hordes of Hydra.

Eventually, Nova left the team to venture into deep space on personal business. During this time, the New Warriors adopted a new way of fighting crime: via Reality Television. The team took part in a television show centered around their exploits as super heroes. The New Warriors would travel around the country with a camera crew as they searched for crime to fight. Hungry for ratings, the team targeted a house in Stamford, Connecticut, where they believed several wanted super criminals were hiding out. The criminals, including Nitro, had recently escaped from the Raft (a super-human holding facility). The New Warriors were unable to subdue all of the criminals, however, and Nitro's explosion leveled an extremely large portion of Stamford. All but Speedball and Nitro were killed in the blast. In addition to the death of the New Warriors, the civillian casualties were horrendous, including an entire elementary school that held 300 children. Nitro escaped, and in his absence the only survivor of the Warriors Speedball was blamed for the destruction and deaths. His trial was sensationalized during the weeks after tragedy. Eventually, Speedball accepted responsibility for the tragedy and registered under the Super-Human Registration Act, earning a pardon as a result and enlisting in the Thunderbolts program as Penance.

In the aftermath of the Registration Act, a new group of young vigilantes who oppose registration have surfaced, calling themselves the New Warriors. The team was formed by Bandit, otherwise known as Donyell Taylor, the original Night Thrasher's brother. He recruited a team of de-powered mutants, secretly trying to locate his brother. De-powered mutants Jubilee, Chamber, Beak, Angel (Angel Salvadore), and Wind Dancer are among those who joined his ranks. Trained in field combat by Jubilee, the team uses technology and gadgets to give them superhuman abilities. Their objective is to help the government bring criminals to justice without being registered as superheroes. Time and again, however, they has been harmed by Donyell's lack of honesty towards them, which has caused several rifts in their team. Tony Stark recently formed his own group of soldiers to hunt the renegade New Warriors down. This caused the surviving group to escape via time travel to a dystopian future, hoping to bring back several of their fallen comrades.

Recently, Justice formed his own team of New Warriors, the Counter Force and after the disbandment of the Night Thrasher's new team, Night Thrasher joined the Counter Force, that reclaimed the New Warriors name. Tigra and Gauntlet joined the team, and Tigra suggests the team's name change to "Avengers Resistance", as an attempt to take back the name being corrupted by Norman Osborn's Avengers.